With the off-season well underway, the Victoria Grizzlies have selected forward Lucas Clark as team captain for the 2017-18 campaign.
The product of Port Perry, Ont. will enter his second season in Victoria with the aim of leading them to a deep playoff run.
“I look forward to the challenge of rallying the great group of guys playing on this hockey club and continuing to build on this strong core of a team, where everyone has the same mindset — that goal of winning an RBC Cup,” said Clark in an interview with the Victoria Times Colonist.
Grizzlies general manager and head coach Craig Didmon is optimistic about the 20-year-old’s expanded role, as he highlights Clark’s two-way skill-set and work ethic as core strengths.
“Clark is a do-it-all type of forward who is smart defensively, tough and hard to play against, works extremely hard in games and practices — and he is a very good offensive player on top of that. You can’t ask for much more in a forward,” Didmon told the Times Colonist.
The 6-foot-1, 210-pound forward finished his first season in Victoria with 17 goals and 26 assists in 57 games, good enough for sixth on the team in scoring. Clark followed that up with four goals and four assists in 17 playoff games, with six of those points coming in their second round series against the Powell River Kings.
The Grizzlies finished the 2016-17 regular season as the top seed in the Island Division with a record of 37-12-5-4, as their 83 points was the fourth best overall total in the BCHL. Victoria came within two wins of advancing to the Fred Page Cup Finals, as they fell to the Chilliwack Chiefs in a six-game third round series.
Clark will lead a returning group of players that features forwards Jamie Rome, Keyvan Mokhtari, Cameron Thompson along with defencemen Drayson Pears, Dayne Finnson and Carter Berger.
